Petit Jean Farm
Weekly Farm Newsletter
June 29, 2009
Dear Folks,
Aren’t we people funny creatures? We insist on making things other than what they are. Sometimes this leads to great ingenuity and optimism, but other times we take it too far. Consider New Orleans and Phoenix. Both are fascinating cities, beautifully different from each other and from the woodlands Arkansas. However, both are being forced to appear very different from what they are naturally. Much of New Orleans actually lies below sea level. Being in the city, you can see that you have to walk up to get to the lake and the river on the city’s borders. No wonder it’s hard to keep the water out. Phoenix has the opposite problem of too little water – it’s in the middle of a desert. Flying into the city, you can see what looks like barren wasteland ending abruptly at bright green lawns. They say the city is sinking every year as the aquifer underneath is being drained.
The modern American food system tries to force the land to be other than what it is, often with devastating consequences. Read Timothy Egan’s book The Worst Hard Time for a new look at the Dust Bowl. It is thought of as one of the country’s worst and longest lasting natural disasters, but it wasn’t natural at all. “Advanced” crop farming practices are directly responsible for the Dust Bowl. All that dust blowing into people’s lives came from the expansive new plowed fields of wheat. When the land was broken up to make way for planting, the grass’s roots that had been there no longer held the dirt and water. The land dried up, the soil turned to dust, and people hundreds of miles away saw rain turn to mud. Wow. Who thought eating grain could have such ethical implications? Once you start looking, you realize there are stories everywhere and multilayered effects of everything you do.
Who’s ready to stock your freezer with some environmentally conscious cows? If you have even been thinking about ordering a quarter, half, or whole beef, pork, or lamb, this is the time to do it. Quarters, halves, and whole orders will be available for one more week and not again until September. We don’t want you to miss out!
Please place your orders by noon on Thursday by calling 501-727-5659 or e’mailing ed@gatewayfarm-ar.com. You can also order online through one of the locally grown websites. You can see what we have available now by visiting www.petitjeanfarm.com/farminventory.html.
See you at the market!
Your Petit Jean Farmers
P.S. Food, Inc., a recently released movie featuring Michael Pollan and Joel Salatin, is bringing to public attention the kinds of issues our faithful customers have been supporting for years. If you want to see your efforts on the big screen, come watch the movie with us this weekend. There have only been a limited number of copies released, but it will be coming to Arkansas. Let us know if you want us to keep you posted on details. If you have bought $1000 of products from us in the past year, we will also buy your ticket.
Petit Jean Farm
1039 Winrock Drive
Morrilton, AR 72110
501-727-5659
www.petitjeanfarm.com
